Week 38 - Excellent way to finish

Well not finished as such but end of an era, with Betfair refusing to back down on the premium charge. I think this will force us to do several things, use other exchanges, fiddle with the commission we earn and also probably work harder to earn the same amount. I still think its very strange that any business can turn around to their most successful and most likely largest customers and say, 'Ok it's not fair that you are doing well, we want 22.5% of your earnings for no risk and nothing in return'. Quite simply one of the strangest business decisions I think you will ever see.

The excuse they have offered doesn't seem to stack up, unfortunately I don't think you will get any opposing views from an employee though, after all it's their job at risk. Betfair have said they need more money to recruit new customers, I've been told they just dropped their bounty for new referrals to £10 from £25. Therefore the new customer line doesn't appear to stack up with actions, will it just drop into increased profits? Out of principle I will aim to move as soon as the conditions are right. I just can't believe they have alienated their customer base so effectively. Also only 0.5% of customer being affected, I just can't see that. Maybe my view is distorted?

I'm taking next week off, gathering my thoughts and will return the following week. I can't believe that Betfair want £400 out of that total.

Week 37 - More like the norm

After last week were I felt I couldn't put a foot wrong I returned to more mortal performance levels. In fact it was a little frustrating from time to time. Given the available racing, it wasn't a terrible performance. With the evening racing reverting to some all weather tracks I have got a bit of my life back. It's great to be able to go out in the evening again and the weathers looking up as well.As we exit the flat season and go into the jumps I am expecting future weeks to bounce around this level subject to what it is on and my general performance.

I am still pondering over the fact that from next week I would owe Betfair at least an additional £227 on this total. Sorry Betfair but your business proposition is just shot to bits, I thought you were an exchange?!?!?!? A lot of the time I ask for prices on the 'exchange' therefore I am adding liquidty to your model. I don't manipulate prices or take advantage of fast pictures or anything, I make a geniune contribition. You are telling me and plenty others to stick it and also adopting a model that is unlike any exchange I have ever seen. Does the new york stock exchange ask day traders to contribute if they make a profit? Such a thing would be totally absurd. If it really, truely, only affected 0.5% of your customers how come you didn't contact them individually. All I received was a bulk email into my inbox. 0.5% of customers, I don't think so!

While we await new tools we will have to stick with Betfair but I am starting to familiarise myself with Betdaq already. It looks like the odds increments are smaller there, that will impact how I trade. As soon as the tools start appearing then I will be spending at least some of my time on Betdaq while the whole site gets used to this mercurial shift in the market. Eventually I hope to be full time on Betdaq. As for next week I am quite tempted to not trade at all on Betfair, I sort of hope others will do the same.

Paddy Power advertisment

Seeing red, well Purple actually

Listen I've got a deal for you, you give me 20% of your profits and in return I will give you err... nothing. Have we got a deal? Thought not.

OK, it's not that bare, but if you are Betfair, apparently we do have a deal. With two weeks notice, If you are a consistent winner you Betfair now want you to contribute 20%+ of your profits to their pot. Consistent winner to Betfair means more than £5k a year by the looks of it, actually £5k for 60 weeks, unless you have lost are huge chunk in commission to them. Basically Betfair don't want you to win any longer.

Obviously as a winner this will eat a chunk into my potential profits, so what am I going to?

Well one thing I wont do, as I suspect is the same for others, is to sit around and do nothing. I face an easy choice. Give away 20% of my gains for nothing in return or work on ways to reduce this. Investing up to 20% of my profits to find an alternative is obviously a sensible solution so that's on the cards. The first thing I did was to sign up to Betdaq. OK I can't trade there at the moment but it will only be a short amount of time before tools start appearing to use there. Speaking to somebody at Betdaq it looks like these are on the way already. I recommend you also sign up to Betdaq ASAP. Betdaq is poor in comparison to Betfair but if any liquidity starts to move then it will transform that exchange. I suspect that will happen and I will do my bit to make that happen.

I also have a large cash balance in Betfair which I earn no interest on, so I have drawn down all but the necessary amount. Betfair will lose a fair chunk in lost interest on that and I will gain that now. Over the course of a year this would be 5%.

If Betfair had gone for an extra 5% to a total of 10%, then I think I would have shrugged my shoulders. If they are facing problems that need to be addressed and clearly stated that, then everybody in the market would probably stomach it and move on. 20%+ though is such a significant move that it is enough to push people over the edge.

For the blog it could have interesting consequences. I am going to experiment with a couple of ways to generate commission at no cost. That will completely mess up the weekly totals and make a nonsense of them. I'm not sure after the 22nd of September if I will be able to post up an sensible results due to this, so Betfair may well have ended the blog promoting Betfair! I'll only know for sure when I start doing this. Till then I'll carry on as normal.

Personally speaking, I don't think Betfair have fully thought through the full consequences of their actions. They say they have done their math, but judging by the response in the press and community they seem to have misjudged the move. At best it paints Betfair in the light of a company that is no longer interested in people that win, the dream that the entire company was built on.

Week 36 - A curious week

As we drift, excuse the pun, into the jumps season, the opportunities shrink and I was expecting my totals to decline. As it was, last week just seemed a breeze for some reason. I never really felt troubled and had few losses. I reckon I earned more on average per race than I have at any time of the year. Very strange, I am sure there must be some underlying reason for it but I can't explain it myself. I think I'll drop an email to my mentor and they can explain.

Anyhow it was a very satisfactory week and much better than I expected. I guess it goes some way to compensate for the poor week I had recently. Whether this run continues is another thing but here's hoping! I hope you had a good week despite the dreadful weather. I hope we get a better run this week.

Week 35 - Confidence restored

That's better. The return of more 'normal' days, i.e. not called off due to the rain, meant things went a lot better for me last week. In fact, it felt like a breeze. I hope next week is the same as that would make me feel a lot more optimistic about the month.

The reason I want to feel more optimistic is because we are now at the point where we head into less meetings. I am not expecting any fireworks and I suggest you reset expectations as well. To try and get some really big totals when there is less on is not realistic.

With less opportunities on the horse racing front I did mess around with the Soccer last week. Mess around is the best way to describe it, I am still some way from deciding what I want to do.